EECE 7368:
High-Level Design of Hardware/Software Systems
System complexities are growing exponentially driven by ever increasing
application demands and technological advances that allow us to put
complete multi-processor systems on a chip (MPSoCs). System-level
design
that jointly covers hardware and software is one approach to address
the
associated complexities in the design process and the market pressures.
This course presents state-of-the-art methods, tools and techniques for
system-level design and modeling of complete multi-processor systems
from specification down to implementation across hardware-software
boundaries. Using the
SpecC
language and the System-On-Chip Environment
(
SCE), we
will specify,
simulate, analyze, model and design
hardware-software systems based on examples of typical embedded
applications.
Topics:
- Overview of Embedded systems, electronic system-level (ESL)
design
- Models of Computation: FSMs, dataflow, process networks
- Introduction to System-level design languages (SLDLs):
SpecC,
SystemC
- Discrete event simulation semantics
- Specification, profiling and analysis of HW/SW systems
- System-level design methodologies and tools for:
- Partitioning
- Scheduling
- Communication synthesis
- System-level modeling:
- Transaction-Level Modeling (TLM) for communication
- Processor and RTOS modeling
- Embedded hardware and software implementation: synthesis
and
cosimulation
- System design examples and case studies.
Prerequisites:
- EECE 7205 - Fundamentals of Computer Engineering
- Working knowledge of C/C++, algorithms and data structures
- Working knowledge of operating systems (preferably
real-time
operating systems)
- Understanding of digital systems and computer architecture
Textbooks:
Primary
Optional
- A. Gerstlauer, R. Doemer, J. Peng, D. Gajski,
"System
Design:
A Practical Guide with SpecC",
Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, June 2001.
ISBN 0-7923-7387-1
- T. Groetker, S. Liao, G. Martin, S. Swan,
"System Design with SystemC",
Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, May 2002.
ISBN 1-4020-7072-1
- F. Vahid, T. Givargis,
"Embedded
System Design: A Unified Hardware/Software Introduction"
(authors' site),
John Wiley & Sons, 2001.
ISBN 978-0-471-38678-0